RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Abdominal ultrasound should become part of standard care for early diagnosis and management of necrotising enterocolitis: a narrative review
JF Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition
JO Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
SP F551
OP F559
DO 10.1136/archdischild-2018-316263
VO 104
IS 5
A1 Jacqueline van Druten
A1 Minesh Khashu
A1 Sherwin S Chan
A1 Saeed Sharif
A1 Hassan Abdalla
YR 2019
UL http://fn.bmj.com/content/104/5/F551.abstract
AB Necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) is a leading cause of death and disability in preterm newborns. Early diagnosis through non-invasive investigations is a crucial strategy that can significantly improve outcomes. Hence, this review gives particular attention to the emerging role of abdominal ultrasound (AUS) in the early diagnosis of NEC, its performance against abdominal radiograph and the benefits of AUS use in daily practice. AUS has been used in the diagnosis and management of NEC for a couple of decades. However, its first-line use has been minimal, despite growing evidence demonstrating AUS can be a critical tool in the early diagnosis and management of NEC. In 2018, the NEC group of the International Neonatal Consortium recommended using AUS to detect pneumatosis and/or portal air in preterm NEC as part of the ‘Two out of three’ model. To facilitate widespread adoption, and future improvement in practice and outcomes, collaboration between neonatologists, surgeons and radiologists is needed to generate standard operating procedures and indications for use for AUS. The pace and scale of the benefit generated by use of AUS can be amplified through use of computer-aided detection and artificial intelligence.